


The Storm Inside

by Burgundy_In_Chaucer



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 05:56:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21010850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgundy_In_Chaucer/pseuds/Burgundy_In_Chaucer
Summary: Lucy and Flynn are both awake in the wee small hours of the morning thanks to a storm outside the bunker. Conversation (and more?) ensues.





	The Storm Inside

**Author's Note:**

> GarcyOctober "Dark and Stormy Night" fanfic prompt; GarcyFam second person narrative challenge.

It’s that time of night again. Everyone in the bunker is sleeping, and has been for hours, but not you. You’re wide awake in spite of the early morning hour, and you know you’re not falling back asleep. Sleep has not been a friend to you, Lucy Preston, for the last few weeks. With a sigh, you throw a blanket over your shoulders and shuffle to the kitchen. This bunker is so damn cold, but luckily, as you are sleeping on the couch, you don’t have far to go to get to your destination. You put on the kettle to boil water for tea and then sit at one of the tables, resting your weary head on your folded arms.

It feels like life has always been cold and time travel and running for your life. Was there ever a time you actually drank your morning coffee while watching the sun come up, not wondering if today was the day you would die? It seems like such a long time since life held any degree of normalcy. You miss it, yet feel as if somehow, this craziness has become your new routine. It’s incredible what deviations from normal a human being can endure. 

You pull the blanket tighter around you as it’s doing nothing to fight the cold. It’s October, but the bunker feels like mid-February. Halloween is in a few weeks, which means nothing to you, although Denise has tried to spread some holiday fun with old family decorations and a bunch of jack-o’-lanterns. You almost wish that one of them would catch the whole bunker on fire so you could move to a new safe house. The cold in the bunker… it seeps into you.

You hear a booming noise from up above, and startle to realize it must have been really loud for you to hear it all the way down here. If you had to guess, you’d estimate that the bunker was at least 100 feet underground, and made of concrete and metal, characteristics you'd previously thought weren't all that conducive to hearing surface noise. You look around, waiting for the sound to repeat itself. It does, and this time the bunker actually shakes. Now on edge, you jump much more than you should when Flynn appears in your peripheral vision. You turn to look, and damn, his lean muscularity, wearing the hell out of sweatpants and a crew sweater, fill you with warmth. The man makes no noise. In bare feet, Garcia Flynn stalks down the hallway, gun in hand. Apparently he heard the noises as well. 

Unaware of nothing, he glances at you before continuing down the hall. He's only gone a few moments more before he walks back to the kitchen and sits next to you at the table, apparently reassured that the noises you’ve both been hearing are not an army invading the bunker. “Bad storm for us to hear it all the way down here,” his voice rumbles, still thick with sleep. He silently regards you for a few seconds, seconds that make you blush with the intensity of his gaze. A look of concern on his face, he finally asks, “Trouble sleeping again?” He knows what’s been going on. 

This familiarity between the two of you still causes your heart to flutter. It’s crept up on you. It feels good. Having someone in the bunker who is so easy to talk to, who understands you better sometimes than you understand yourself, takes some of the edge off this impossible situation.

“Yeah,” you reply. “It’s been the same every night this week. And last week. I wake up between three and four and can’t fall back asleep again.” Another boom rattles the bunker, and you briefly grab onto Flynn’s arm before letting go sheepishly. 

He’s leaning heavily on his elbows to be at your level, and he gazes at you a bit before responding, “You know, Lucy, according to you, you had no trouble sleeping all those months you were in my room. You were always welcome there, you know? Still are.” The last two words come out a bit uncertainly.

You do know. You know very well. Woken by frequent nightmares in the week following Rufus’s death, you sought out Flynn and the two of you became roommates. Never in all your life have you slept better than when you were sleeping with him. Well, not SLEEPING with him. That, unfortunately, never happened. But the two of you did share a room, and then a bed, and for a few months, you were better rested than you’d ever remembered being. But then…

Then you started to want more. Sleeping next to this man for one hot summer left you wanting more than company, more than friendship, more than his arm draped casually across your waist as you both slept. You wanted all of him, but the wedding ring he still wore on his left hand indicated he was not ready to give all of himself to you. So, you withdrew. A few weeks ago, you started sleeping on the couch again like you had been before Chinatown. With a quick thank you to him for the comfort and safety he had provided, you made up some dumb excuse about there no longer being a threat in the bunker, and that you would leave him to his privacy and retire to your couch. Truthfully, when you told him, you thought he looked hurt, but what could he really say? He was there for you in so many ways but couldn’t be there for you in every way, and months after finding peace of mind in his room, that’s what you wanted. So, you decided to leave. You were not in a place to be second choice to another man holding on to a dead wife. Time travel had shown you that that never ends well.

The kettle whistles, announcing your water has boiled. You had forgotten about it. You get up to prepare your tea as another faint rumble of thunder echoes down the bunker’s elevator shaft. 

“I- I’m making tea. Would you like some?” you ask, even though you know he prefers coffee. Your voice shakes. This storm is rattling you more than you thought it would. It finally dawns on you why. Down here, the distant thunder mimics some of the terrifying underwater sounds that surrounded you when your car crashed into a river so long ago, muffled then by water as the thunder now is muffled by distance and concrete. Taking a deep breath, you let it out slowly. 

“I’ll have some, sure. Anything to try to get warm.” He smiles. It’s soft, and causes you to feel... things. “You know, Lucy,” his gravely voice is also causing you to feel things and dammit, you need to get away from him, “The storm can’t touch us down here.” 

You take a choppy breath. Your response is quiet. “I know. I just -“ You focus all your attention on making tea for the next minute. To his credit, Flynn waits patiently. Finally, you’re ready to share. “The thunder, it - the distance muffles it just like the water muffled all the awful noises of my car crash fifteen years ago.” After so much time sharing a room, he knew about this defining moment in your life as well. 

His eyes hold you with their sympathy. He moves to come to you, but you gesture with a tea cup for him to sit, and then you continue, “I wasn’t scared of much as a kid, but after my accident, every strange noise scared me.” Handing him his tea, you blush when your hand touches his. You sit down across from him, and take a deep breath so you can go on, “The embarrassing thing is that I was a scaredy cat, but Amy was brave.” You laugh lightly. “After my crash, SHE’D always comfort ME during thunderstorms.” 

Flynn doesn’t respond for a while. When the silence gets to be a beat too long, you glance over at him, and see tears in his eyes. Shoot. What did you say?

He hesitates, but then his words come spilling out, “It sounds like you need someone else to keep you safe during dark and stormy nights.” He glances down the bunker hallway, and you swear, if he means Wyatt, you are going to rip out your hair and feed it to him.

You glance at his ring as you try to compose a calm and rational response, and with a sharp intake of breath, he seems to realize something. He looks stunned, surprised. And then he speaks. “Lucy, I…“ He rakes his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end and look absolutely adorable, but you need to pay attention to his words. “Lorena used to hate storms. She couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t focus on whatever she was doing whenever it was storming outside. Usually she would go to bed before me, but on stormy nights, I had to be with her for her to sleep.” Truly you could not imagine this going any worse. You thought maybe that look on realization on his face meant he had realized something about you, but no. It will always be Lorena for Flynn just as it was always Jessica for Wyatt. You close your eyes, hoping in some tiny part of your brain that by doing so, you will get him to stop talking about his beloved wife. He doesn’t. “Lucy, hear me out. For years after she…” He looks away. “…after she died, I couldn’t hear thunder or see lightning or experience any kind of storm without thinking of her. It sounds ridiculous, but I’d feel lonely during storms.“ 

You keep your eyes closed, now to keep your own tears from spilling over. It’s hard to breathe. It’s so clear that he is not over Lorena, likely never will be. You get it. As much as it hurts, you get it. The storm must be painfully reminding him of her all over again, of his loss, and because you care about this man, you have to change the subject, protect him from this. You steel yourself and finally feel it is safe to open your eyes without tears falling, and are just about to delicately try to change the subject when he speaks first.

“Every storm used to remind me of Lorena.” He clears his throat. “But no longer.“

“Garcia, I -“

Wait, what? You look up at him sharply, not sure that you’ve heard him correctly. He smiles softly at you, tentatively. And then removes his ring from his left ring finger. You gape. Is he… what?

“Lucy, I think I know why you moved out of my room,” he begins gently, and then thankfully pauses to take the time to look shy and absurdly cute. You use the time to catch your breath, as your stomach has jumped so rapidly in nervous anticipatory excitement, and you are afraid to be hopeful, but you think this is going in a good direction now, and… He continues, leaning toward you to look into your eyes, “I… I slept so much better with you there in my room as well. It was comforting and comfortable. I’m guessing, though…” he appears to struggle to go on, “That maybe, like me, you began to hope for more, but this…” He holds up his ring. 

Did he say ‘like me’? DID HE SAY ‘LIKE ME’? Does he want what you want? You stare across the table at him, afraid to hope, and yet.

“Lucy, I’m so sorry. You have been the one good thing in my life for four years, but in holding on to the past, I was pushing you away.” He tucks the ring securely into the pocket of his sweatpants, and then looks at you, waiting. 

Thunder again shakes the bunker as the two of you stare at one another, breathing hard. You are stunned, but overwhelmingly happy, and now, you have a damn kitchen table separating you from this man who seems to be telling you that he feels the same way about you, and… 

You get out of your chair, Flynn mirroring your movements as you walk around the table towards one another. His longer legs mean that he is quickly standing directly in front of you, and then another echo of thunder makes your knees give way and you stumble forward. He is there to catch you by the arms, and then lifts you onto the table, his smirk at your clumsiness replaced by a serious expression as he arranges himself between your legs. You’re still recovering from shock at how easy it was for him to lift you and now here you are, face to face with this man who has become your everything. He is leaning closer and rests his forehead against yours, and you whimper in anticipation. Only then does he pull back slightly to see your consent and lifting your chin lightly with his fingertips, he moves back in and kisses you gently.

You can barely breathe as you open your mouth to him, finally doing this thing you have wanted desperately to do for so long. Reaching up, you pull his head closer to you and suck gently on his upper lip. He moans into your mouth, cupping your face in his hands and running his thumbs over your cheek bones. You can’t believe this is happening, can’t believe someone chose you, and then suddenly unable to stand being so far away from him, you tug on his sweater and murmur into his mouth, “Please take me back to your room so you can protect me from this terrifying storm.” 

He laughs, low and rumbly, and you feel his happiness join with your own. And then with no warning, he places one arm behind you and the other under your legs and swoops you off the table. “Our room,” he corrects you, and carries you there.

For the rest of the night, you feel that you are back where you belong, and you can’t wait to catch up on your sleep.

Eventually.

Because there is no more sleep tonight.


End file.
